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Ole Olssons Oldtime Orkestra

People keep asking, who is Ole Olsson, anyway? Ole Olsson, of Snoose
Boulevard fame, is the supposed leader of this group, but he has yet to
turn up at any gigs, and the band has been playing together for years.
Folklore has it that he once owed someone a musical favor, so he was
forced to scour the entire state of Minnesota looking for musicians to
make up a band. In the end, he managed to put together this all-star
cast. Olsson was quoted by "Lutefisk Today" to say: "Ya, dey sure can
play dose old time dance tunes, and dey work real cheap too." Olsson
was particularly pleased that half the band is composed of females."Der
is a lot less snoose chewing on stage," he noted. "I yust hate it when
dey dribble tobacco yuice on my microphones!" Nothing has been heard
from Ole since, but the band carries on, wondering if one day he may
appear......

Ole Olsson’s Oldtime Orkestra (usually referred to as O.O.O.O.) is a
fun loving group of musicians who first met at the Good Templar
Hall in Minneapolis, Minnesota playing for Scandinavian dances in times
gone by. Nowadays, they still play some pretty darn good Scandinavian
music for oldtime dancing and/or just plain enjoying. They play
fiddles, accordions, pump organ and guitar, and sing some funny
Scandinavian vaudeville songs that may occasionally make Lutheran
ladies smile. They play for festivals and lutefisk feeds all around
Minnesota and even make it out of the state once in awhile in their old
yalopy to perform in far flung places. They have traveled from New York
City to Thousand Oaks, California; from Minot, N.D. to Swedesburg, Ia.,
all in their quest to spread the joy of Scandinavian folk music and
perhaps find the perfectly formed piece of lefse.

·) Art Bjorngjeld lives in Brooklyn Park and is a
veteran performer, playing fiddle, accordion and guitar. He grew up in
a musical family and is a talented musician himself. He has been known
to sing “All Pooped Out” in the shower. Art also performs as a solo;
with the well known trio, the Minnesota Scandinavian Ensemble and plays
for the Swedish and Norwegian folk dance groups in the Twin Cities.

·) Char Bostrom lives in St. Paul and is also a veteran
performer. Char’s favorite style of music is traditional Swedish
fiddling, but she puts up with the Norwegian antics of her bandmates.
Besides performing in Ole Olsson’s, she plays solo fiddle for polska
dance lessons and dance camps all around the country. Char also plays
for the Twin Cities Swedish Folk Dancers.

·) Mary Abendroth lives south of Deerwood, Mn
and has been performing music for most of her life, starting with
choirs in high school, going through travels around the world
with COMEX, a singing/performing group similar to Up with People,
to performing as a duo with her husband Paul Wilson all over the
midwest for the last 28 years. Mary has a wonderful voice, singing
in Swedish and has a very deft touch on her preferred instrument,
the pump organ!

·) Paul Wilson has been playing traditional
Scandinavian
music for 30 years. With Swedish grandparents and Norwegian
great-grandparents,
Paul's wide interests have led him to studying musical traditions
from all the Scandinavian countries. This is reflected in the
festival that Paul founded called Nisswa-stämman.
It is a pan Scandinavian
festival embracing the music of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland.
Paul plays 'drone' fiddles that he builds himself and
also plays the 2 row button accordion, guitar and sings dialect
"swinglish" songs like Nikolina.

·)Bruce Bostrom is a veteran performer and raconteur
with a fantastic necktie collection. Bruce is one of the best
munnharpe players in Minnesota and claims to have an inside track
on the where-abouts of Ole Olson himself! Hear Bruce performing
on his harpe here.